vs
JournoFinder alternative · 2026JournoFinder ends at a CSV export. Medialyst takes you from the list to a sent pitch.
Per JournoFinder's FAQ, “you will not be able to access the journalists contact information on the free trial.” And pitches are sent outside the product: their FAQ says “We don't currently have the ability for you to email from within our platform” and offers to recommend outreach tools.
Built by an AI engineer and a working publicist.
Medialyst's co-founders bring both halves of the job into the room: Elvis brings the standard he held at Google, and Carly brings the standard her own clients pay for.


Co-founder
Runs Notably, a boutique PR agency serving 25+ clients, and pitches journalists for a living.
The proof is public. Carly grades our real media lists, and we publish every grade, starting with her first: F, 27.9/100 (latest: B, 81.1). As far as we know, Medialyst is the only AI PR tool that publishes a public, recurring quality benchmark.
The honest comparison.
Pulled from public JournoFinder documentation, customer reviews, and our own product. We update this page when either side ships something new. JournoFinder pricing and feature claims on this page are accurate as of 27 July 2026.
| Capability | Medialyst | JournoFinder |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the right journalist | ||
| Find journalists for this story | ✓ Story-specific relevance scoring | ~ Semantic keyword search; AI Agent vets beat/reach |
| Understand a journalist's beat | ✓ Reads past articles + recent coverage | ~ Crawls 50M+ articles, surfaces who's covering now |
| Analyze past writing | ✓ Grounded in actual articles | ~ Profile bylines + recent-article references |
| Per-journalist pitch angles | ✓ Personalized angles + pitch drafts | ~ AI Agent builds pitch-ready lists, no per-journalist drafts |
| Data freshness | ✓ Live news article search in real time | ~ Real-time crawl; outdated contacts auto-removed |
| Refine a list with natural language | ✓ “Remove anyone inactive in 6 months” | ~ Natural-language semantic search |
| Find more like top performers | ✓ “Find 20 more like the top 5” | ✕ Not available |
| Add custom enrichment columns | ✓ “Research if they use affiliate links” | ✕ Not available |
| Pitching & sending | ||
| Email verification | ✓ Multi-step verification waterfall | ~ Email validation w/ bounce protection (80–90% reported) |
| Send from one place | ✓ Built-in sending | ✕ CSV export only — no built-in sending |
| Pricing & setup | ||
| Time to first pitch | ✓ Minutes | ~ Minutes (self-serve, 7-day trial) |
| Free trial | ✓ First list free | ~ Free Plan (no card) + 7-day trial (contacts withheld) |
| Contract | ✓ None — cancel anytime | ~ Monthly available; annual discounts |
| Price | ✓ from $149/mo | ~ ~$119/mo annual (Individual) |
| Agent-native workflows | ||
| API access | ✓ Public REST API | ~ No documented public REST API |
| Remote MCP support | ✓ Hosted remote MCP server | ~ Claude/ChatGPT connector (MCP-style, unverified) |
| Agent-native workflows | ✓ Usable directly inside Claude, ChatGPT & Cursor | ~ Build lists inside Claude/ChatGPT via connector |
| CSV import / re-enrichment from competitor exports | ✓ Upload any CSV — the agent re-verifies & re-scores | ~ Batch URL upload, no re-verify/re-score of CSVs |
Find your journalists now. No demo. No contract. No credit card.
Start in seconds and see live journalist matches for your first pitch.
Why people switch from JournoFinder.
Sending happens outside JournoFinder
JournoFinder finds the journalist. Then it hands you a CSV. In their own words: “We don't currently have the ability for you to email from within our platform, but if you need we can recommend you some tools to use for outreach.” So the real workflow is search, export, open a second tool you're paying for separately, paste, send — and the real cost is JournoFinder plus that tool. Medialyst finds the journalist and sends the pitch in one place. One tool, one workflow, no export step.
JournoFinder FAQ — “How do I contact journalists?” ↗Your research is metered
JournoFinder includes 250 credits a month. One credit per news search, one per bulk search. Run out on the 20th and your research waits for the 1st.
JournoFinder Help Center — FAQs (250 credits/month) ↗What it actually costs
$189/mo billed monthly, ~$119/mo annual on Individual. $349/mo monthly, ~$229/mo annual for a 3-seat Team. The Individual annual price rose from $99 to $119. And because there's no sending inside the product, the outreach tool their FAQ offers to recommend sits on top of all of it.
JournoFinder — pricing (archived at $99/mo annual, Oct 2025) ↗
Where each one wins.
Where Medialyst wins
Right-priced, and built for the whole workflow
Starter is $149/mo, Pro $299, Scale $800 — published, monthly, no per-seat fees, no contract, and a 14-day money-back guarantee. The first list is free with 100 credits and no credit card. And sending from your own Gmail or Outlook is built in, so you don't pay for a second outreach tool on top.
Pay only for verified emails
You pay 1 credit only when Medialyst delivers a verified email, and misses are free. Every delivered email passed a multi-step verification waterfall within the last 14 days, or is re-checked when you build the list.
Fit for this story, grounded in real articles
Instead of semantic keyword search over a crawl, Medialyst reads hundreds of articles relevant to your specific announcement, scores reporters 0–100 by fit, and tells you why each one would write it — grounded in their actual recent coverage, not a topic tag.
Evidence-first discovery, in minutes
Journalists are picked from what they published recently for your story. Medialyst works globally across major online news sources and many trade publications, and a verified, scored list comes back in minutes.
Agent-native from the ground up
A public REST API, a hosted remote MCP server, and custom enrichment columns let you run Medialyst directly inside Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor — and ask for things a connector over a filter UI can't, like “find journalists who use affiliate links.” Upload competitor CSVs and the agent takes it from there.
Where JournoFinder wins
An easy, no-sales-call on-ramp
JournoFinder is fully self-serve — a formal Free Plan with no credit card and a 7-day trial with no demo call — so you can be inside it in minutes, and Reddit fans like it as “a fraction of the price of Prowly without artificially low limits.” Worth knowing: Medialyst is self-serve too, starts at $97/mo annually (below JournoFinder's ~$119) and gives you a free first list — so the honest reason to pick JournoFinder is its reactive toolset, not the sticker.
JournoFinder — pricing (~$119/mo annual, Individual) ↗Best-rated free journalist-request aggregator
JournoFinder Requests — its free HARO/Qwoted/#journorequest aggregator with semantic filtering and DA scores — was rated the #1 journalist request platform by Hey Press in February 2026. As a top-of-funnel reactive-PR tool, that's a genuinely strong, well-regarded offering.
Hey Press — #1 journalist request platform (Feb 2026) ↗DA scores for the link-building crowd
JournoFinder attaches domain-authority scores to the outlets and journalists it surfaces, which suits SEO and digital-PR teams optimizing for backlinks as much as coverage. If your KPI is link equity rather than the story itself, having DA baked into discovery is a fair, niche-specific convenience that an earned-media tool like Medialyst doesn't center on.
JournoFinder — real-time database ↗
AI bolted on vs. AI-native.
Legacy platforms point AI at the same filter UI you already had. Medialyst assigns a research agent to each candidate journalist, reads their actual work, and consolidates the strong fits. Watch the same brief run through both.

MEDIALYST AGENTOUTPUT: 1,847 RESEARCHED TO FIT-CHECKED SHORTLIST
Full architecture notes for JournoFinder
JournoFinder's AI Agent and Claude/ChatGPT connector are real and newer than most indie tools' — credit where it's due. But architecturally, the AI sits on top of the same keyword-filter database: semantic search generates related terms, the crawl returns whoever matches, and the Agent vets that set by beat and reach. It's the legacy filter dashboard with extra steps, and you get little control over the step. Medialyst is AI-native end to end. There's no underlying filter UI to bolt onto — the agent reads real, recent articles per journalist, and you can define custom enrichment columns in plain language: “find journalists who use affiliate links and identify which platform,” or “has this travel journalist visited San Diego in the last two years?” That's the difference between an AI Agent driving a keyword crawl and a research assistant that actually does the research.
★★★★★“Not a static database pull. Not the same recycled names that have been sitting in a spreadsheet for two years. A researched, current list built around exactly what you tell it to look for, with journalist names, their publication, their most recent articles, and their contact information all in one place.”Amy BartkoPR professional, Chatterbox
Pitching the same announcement.
One launch, two tools. Here's what a comms lead actually does to get a story-specific pitch out the door.
Medialyst9 min total
JournoFinder~3 daysThree places the difference shows up.
01Database quality
JournoFinder's pitch is freshness over size: a continuous crawl of 50M+ news articles, AI-built profiles for newly-surfaced journalists, and automatic removal of outdated contacts.
That's a smart stance for an indie tool, and it genuinely beats a static index of 2019 bylines. On email, its site says “The contact details for any journalists you add to a media list will be automatically verified, and you will see these verification results in your export,” with accuracy reported at 80–90%. Medialyst shares the freshness-first instinct and starts from evidence: it picks journalists from what they published recently for your specific story and confirms the beat from their actual bylines.
It keeps its own journalist database as well; every email it delivers was validated within the last 14 days or is re-checked when you build the list, and you pay 1 credit only when a verified email is delivered. It works globally across major online news sources and many trade publications. Coverage is strongest where articles and bylines are published online; hyper-local, print-only and some regional trade sources can be thinner.
02Speed
Speed is a place where JournoFinder is genuinely good: there's no sales call, a 7-day trial gives you immediate access, and the AI Agent builds “pitch-ready media lists in minutes.”
This is one of its real strengths, and it's fair to say so. Medialyst matches the self-serve speed and then closes the loop. There's no demo gate and no contract — you paste a press release, a URL, or a topic, and the agent goes to work immediately, and a verified, scored journalist list comes back in minutes.
The difference shows up after the list: JournoFinder hands you a CSV to take to another tool, while Medialyst sends from the same place you found them, so “fast to a list” becomes “fast to a pitch that's already gone.” For reactive PR, where the window between a story breaking and your angle landing is measured in hours, removing that export-and-switch step is the difference between catching the moment and missing it.
03AI & agent surface
JournoFinder has moved earlier than most indie tools here, and it deserves credit: it markets an AI Agent for automated list building and a Claude/ChatGPT connector that lets you build lists inside an AI assistant (described as MCP-style, though unverified in the June 2026 refresh).
The limit is what sits underneath — the connector drives the same keyword crawl, so you're automating a filter, not composing with a research primitive, and there's no documented public REST API for wiring it into your own scripts. Medialyst is built agent-first. A public REST API and a hosted remote MCP server mean you can run journalist discovery and enrichment directly from inside Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor, wire it into your own scripts, or hand it to an internal agent.
Custom enrichment columns let you ask research questions in plain language and get structured answers back across a whole list — the kind of thing a fixed crawl schema can't express. If your team is building AI-assisted workflows, Medialyst is a component you compose with, not a connector bolted onto a database.
Two pricing philosophies, side by side.
Ours is public and posted. Here's how it sits next to JournoFinder's own published pricing page and what named third parties report.
- Starterfounders & small teams$97/mo annual
- Proin-house comms & PR teams$194/mo annual
- Scaleagencies & high-volume teams$520/mo annual
- No contract · no per-seat fees · cancel anytime · 14-day money-back guarantee
- Free first list — 100 credits, no credit card
- One unified product — no modules priced separately
- JournoFinder publishes pricing: a formal Free Plan, an Individual plan around $189/mo monthly (~$119/mo annual), and a new 3-user Team plan around $349/mo monthly (~$229/mo annual). A 7-day trial is available with no sales call, though “you will not be able to access the journalists contact information on the free trial.”
- Pricing published online
In the words of Medialyst users.
Real customers, approved for use. Your results depend on your story and your list — these are theirs.
"Then recently I stumbled upon Elvis Sun's agentic PR tool Medialyst — with a few detailed prompts, the agent comes up with a pretty targeted list of journalists. The best thing is it gives a summary of their recent articles before I commit to reading every piece."

"Medialyst has become one of my go-to tools. It’s fast and intuitive, so I spend less time searching and more time pitching. It’s also helped me find journalists I hadn’t come across before, which has opened up new coverage opportunities for our brands."

"It's 100% customizable to you & your clients. It's affordable. It's built by someone who gets back to you quickly & truly wants to give the people what they want — MORE time."

"What came back was a working list with real journalists, current coverage, and contact information I could use the same day. No cross-referencing. No digging through three different tabs. One prompt and I was pitching."

"Medialyst makes it super easy to narrow down and create dedicated PR lists to reach out to the journalists that actually want to hear what you have to say. The timeline from chatting to the agent about what you have to promote to actually launching the campaign goes down to mere 1-2 hours instead of days worth of research and prospecting."

"Medialyst is the only tool that keeps up with the pace our firm needs to move at across our High Growth B2B Tech clients. The journalist targeting is sharp as well as accurate, and Elvis actually ships when you give him feedback."

"Medialyst takes the guesswork out of journalist outreach. It vets your pitch for suitability, matches it to the right journalists, and hands you their most accurate contact details — so instead of firing off cold emails into the void, you're landing in the right inboxes. The result? Fewer emails sent, more stories published."

"This is a must-have if you work in media, it's easy to use and saves you a lot of time! The customer service has been some of the best I have experienced."

"The big media database platforms are built for agencies with full teams and retainers to match. For a boutique practice like mine, the economics just do not work. Medialyst fits the model. Beyond contact discovery, it helps me stay on top of what reporters are actually covering: the beats, the patterns, the recent angles. That is the real work of pitching well these days. Spray and pray is over, and Medialyst is built for how modern media relations actually works, at a price point that makes sense for the way I operate."

"This new company is a terrific idea—and helps PR people in ways they didn't know they needed it. The team really 'gets' this business and so many businesses just don't. Jump in. The agents are ready!"

"I needed a tool built for speed: finding the journalists who are on a story right now, in the moment, while it's still news. For how fast our world moves, this service is genuinely a big deal."

"I love Medialyst. It follows the workflow I already use, which, if I may say so myself, is the right workflow. I don't keep old Excel documents full of old emails and blast things to people. I hate the spray and pray. I like to make sure reporters are writing about the things I'm talking about, and to find new people who are. Muck Rack, Cision, all of those are basically very expensive static databases. I already know the major trade reporters. What Medialyst has helped me uncover are the people at Fast Company and The Wall Street Journal who cover packaging, and the freelancers I can get on the radar of. Muck Rack just doesn't help with that. Now when I tell Claude 'here's the person,' it pulls them through Medialyst, onto my list there, and starts gathering information about them. I haven't gotten a bounced email yet. I'd rather send a smaller list I can defend. And I'm never afraid to share it with clients, because it has everything in there. It proves its worth. My first job, as an intern, was photocopying Bacon's books into an Excel database every year. So I'm acutely aware of how hard it is to keep track of all this. This is how I would approach it myself."

"As most of us in the PR business know, media database services can be expensive, cumbersome, and too often imperfect. We pay a premium for access to AI and out-of-the-box features. We still spend significant time verifying whether a journalist is still covering the same beat, whether contact information is current, whether a reporter is truly relevant to a story, and whether outreach is actually reaching the right person. And that is only one part of the problem. Media relations itself has become increasingly fragmented. Research happens in one place, list building in another, monitoring somewhere else, and outreach through email —with PR teams constantly stitching the workflow together manually. This can leave teams overwhelmed and unsure how efficient they are. At Trier and Company, we’re excited to endorse Medialyst because it is tackling that workflow from a different direction - with AI top of mind. It's 'pitch-driven' in real time with bona fide speaking points. It's an entirely new experience. … It’s time for a change — and Medialyst is building in exactly the right direction. We’re pleased to support the team - Elvis Sun and Carly Martinetti. Excited to see where they take it from here. Count us in!"

"This is awesome and I just want to say I LOVE Medialyst! It’s well into my workflow. Landed an AP and WashPo interview today for a newsjack for two different clients. Cut down HOURS of work and enabled me to move so quickly! What a great tool!"

Common questions about switching from JournoFinder.
How much does JournoFinder cost in 2026?
What is the best JournoFinder alternative?
Is JournoFinder accurate?
JournoFinder vs Medialyst — which is better?
Does JournoFinder have built-in email sending?
Can I import my JournoFinder list into Medialyst?
Discovery and sending in one place. Build your first list.
Paste a press release, your website URL, or a one-line description of your news. Medialyst finds reporters who actually cover it, scores them by fit, and checks every email before you get it.